The Check is in the Mail!

NARFE Applauds President for Including Federal Retirees in Proposal to Offer $250 to Older Americans in No COLA Year; Association’s Behind-the Scenes Work Pays Off

Margaret L. Baptiste, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE), today praised President Obama for proposing that all federal retirees and survivors -- including Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) annuitants who are not eligible to receive Social Security – should be offered a one-time $250 payment, just like other older Americans. NARFE has worked with key congressional committees since July to ensure that such federal government retirees and survivors would receive equivalent compensation.

The proposal was made in advance of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ October 15 announcement confirming that negative inflation during the past 12 months would result in no cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security and federal civilian and military retirees in 2010.

“This payment would come as a welcome relief to federal retirees and survivors at a time when most will shoulder a 12 to 15 percent health insurance premium increase in a year they will receive no cost-of-living adjustment,” said NARFE President Baptiste. “We commend the president for supporting a payment to older Americans that will help them make ends meet and for including government retirees who are not eligible to receive Social Security. With the boost from the president, NARFE will continue to lead the effort in Congress to pass this needed legislation.”

Over a million federal, state and local government employees who are not eligible to receive Social Security are sometimes not part of such relief proposals. For example, until NARFE and other public employee organizations intervened, government retirees not entitled to Social Security were left out of a similar payment in the Stimulus bill approved by Congress in February 2009.

Federal retirees who were hired by the government before December 31, 1983, did not pay Social Security payroll taxes and are not covered by Social Security unless they worked 40 or more quarters in other Social Security-covered employment.[1] Congress chose not to include government workers in Social Security when the program was first created in 1935 because most public employees already had employer sponsored retirement benefits. Indeed, a CSRS annuity was intended to equal a private-sector pension plus Social Security benefits.

In addition to the president, Baptiste applauded Sen. Harry Reid, D-NV; Max Baucus, D-MT; Bernie Sanders, D-VT; and Blanche Lincoln, D-AK; and Reps. Nancy Pelosi, D-CA; Charles Rangel, D-NY; Carolyn McCarthy, D-NY; and Peter DeFazio, D-OR for their support of this needed relief. She urged Congress to approve the proposal as soon as possible.

October 16, 2009 Dan Adcock

NARFE, one of America’s oldest and largest associations, was founded in 1921 with the mission of protecting the earned rights and benefits of America’s active and retired federal workers. The largest federal employee/ retiree organization, NARFE represents the retirement interests of nearly 5 million current and future federal annuitants, spouses, and survivors.